Samia Suluhu Hassan today he was sworn in as the sixth head of state of Tanzania, writing a page of history. Mama Samia, as the Tanzanians call her, is the first woman since the country’s independence in 1961 to hold the post. She is the second female president on the continent of the 21st century, with the Ethiopian Sahle-Uork Zeudé.
Hassan, 61, succeeded the president John Magufuli, officially died on March 17, of heart complications. From 2015, vice president of the leader who had adopted a denial policy towards the coronavirus, he will remain in office as the Constitution wants until the end of his mandate in 2025.
Tanzania, the denier president died: “John Magufuli killed by Covid”
by Raffaella Scuderi
Elegant, serious, dressed in black with a red hijab, the original president of Zanzibar, of the Muslim religion, gave her first speech as a leader imperturbable. Without a hint of a smile but visibly excited. When the cameras caught her up close, the rapid heartbeat was very noticeable. “I, Samia Suluhu Hassan, promise to be honest and to obey and protect the Tanzanian Constitution,” she said before the cabinet and the armed forces. Always all without face masks, except the 4 ministers in the first row, and seated very close.
President Magufuli died according to official sources on March 17, after missing from the public eye for two weeks. Authoritative sources, including the opposition leader Tundu Lissu, in exile in Belgium, say he died on Thursday 11 March from heart and respiratory problems. Death from Covid is hypothesized, as happened for three officials portrayed in an image recently with the president, all declared dead of “pneumonia”. Magufuli has always declared that his country was Covid-free, blocking the count of infections as of April 29 last year.
Although the former president, nicknamed the bulldozer, has revived the country’s economy, bringing it back within its borders and rejecting the Chinese presiti, his legacy has been compromised by the suppression of press freedom, by the murders of opponents and journalists left without principals or justice, and a population in disarray, sent to church to pray against the devil of the pandemic.
Magufuli, the president-bulldozer who leads the denier Tanzania: “Viruses under control, we don’t want vaccines”
by Raffaella Scuderi
The East African country is now in the hands of Hassan, and the media are wondering if the president will be able to turn the tide on the pandemic by starting to protect the population with measures and vaccines. Graduated in Economics from Manchester University in 1994, Hassan entered politics in 2000, winning a seat in Zanzibar. It arrived in Dodoma in 2010, with 80% of the votes. In 2014 she was commissioned by former President Kikwete to draft the new Constitution.
When Magufuli came to power in 2015, he wanted her as a deputy, making her the first woman to hold this position even then. He has 4 children, 3 boys and a girl.
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